Zandronum

I have finished cleaning up various parts of the forum, as well as making improvements to all the user groups, usernames and group titles.

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What's new?[/size]

ZanStuff Reviews is a recent addition to our forums! Skulltag veterans might remember SkullStuff, and Doom veterans might be familiar with NewStuff, ZanStuff seeks to carry on the project reviewing tradition.
It is located within the Community subforum, here: http://zandronum.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=87



There's also a new default theme, Space Zen. The idea behind its creation was to get the forum theme closer to the appearance of the front-page & tracker themes, as well as a more modern and smooth design compared to the retro/90s inspired Smoky Tokyo themes. The theme should also render slightly better in some browsers.
There are plans for expanding it to have a few alternative versions, like our previous themes have had, as well as cleaning up and bugfixing the other themes (the Pink Space theme is currently broken, sorry guys! I think a MyBB update borked it).

If you want to change your current theme to one of the others on our forums, you can do so at your User Control Panel, at the Edit Options page, or by clicking here: http://zandronum.com/forum/usercp.php?action=options

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So what exactly was changed?[/size]

Some threads I made over the past month or so, detailing the cleanup and improvements:

• Forum layout cleanup in progress - http://zandronum.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=3427

• Staff Contact info & e-mail system overhauled - http://zandronum.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=3517

• Revamping moderator groups & subforum moderators - http://zandronum.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=3545

• Staff & rules reform thread - http://zandronum.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=3555

• FAQ & iFAQ- Frequently & Infrequently Asked Questions - http://zandronum.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=3479

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to let us know here.

The purple to green balance on the new theme is a bit too much IMO, needs a tad more green. (Also needs green space background)

I made a subtle change to the color of the header and footer links (ie, Home | Portal..., and Contact Us | Zandronum...), I'll tinker some more with it later.

Note: The default theme is "Space Zen - Plain" which has no star/space background, one with a starry-background will come later.
EDIT: I posted about the updates below:
http://zandronum.com/forum/showthread.p ... 0#pid47650

I do like this new theme, but I do agree with Catastrophe, it needs more green. With or without a background, I'm ok with that. I mean like, there should be an option where we can choose our background.

I love the new theme guys, great work!

Meh. I'm gonna stick with the old theme until you guys get this one polished up a bit more. :x

i do like the new theme but the purple/green combo seems a bit ugly to me.

Yeah, way too much rounding and too many gradients for me. I'll stick with Smoky Zamboni.

It is far too flashy for me, so I too will stick with my old one, Skullwhat. Also, did you guys change the little thumbnail pictures or whatever they are called? This is what I mean: http://zandronum.com/forum/images/on.gif
They look more softer. I remember them being more rugged last time I seen them. It looked better that way... :<

Yeah, they're less detailed than they were before. Looks like a post-iPhone tech company logo.

New themes don't affect me anyway because I just use Skullwhat.

Needs more space.

And probably less of this.

Ijon Tichy wrote: Yeah, way too much rounding and too many gradients for me. I'll stick with Smoky Zamboni.

Smoky Tokyo master theme. Non-tokyo theme scrubs go home.

Like the purple, miss the space background.

EDIT:

Ijon Tichy wrote: Smoky Zamboni

Man, it's already been a year since this thread.

Like the purple, like the green, roundedness is a given from the homepage (unless you want to edit the homepage too).

I'd personally go for mixing some of that purple out for green, and having some of the homepage's blue-green shade in there somewhere. Maybe the blue-green smoke from the homepage can be used as a tiling background here?

I may be stepping out of line here, but if we're to talk about the rounded stylization in the forum, I'd frankly say the homepage could be more homogenous to itself and the forum. I see random yellows, stripes, metal textures and plates, angles, the banner's angular font could go better with an angular icon and theme, and the round icon mismatches colours with the Zandronum banner and site. That last part is my fault, but I didn't make it to fit; it was just a temporary dock icon replacement for that 16x16 helmet Z& used to use.

Personally, I think the main site and possibly the wiki should be modeled after the actual forum like Skulltag did. This way, it'd actually be easier to maintain and update visual changes, no?

Good ideas all around.

I'll be unifying the forum & site layout/design over time, the reason I haven't done much with the frontpage is because I didn't design it, it's a collaboration between Wartorn, Esselfortium, and a few others like Medicris and myself, maybe even more but their names escape me at the moment.
I'll see if I can get the smoky space background from the frontpage into the regular theme, since a solid color actually looks too plain in the background. (EDIT: Added it, refresh your browser or press F5 to see it)
Note that while the Plain themes won't be as transparent as the older themes, the later variants I have planned will.

In the meantime, I have added a square/non-rounded variant of the new theme: Space Zen - Plain (Sharp corners)


EDIT:

Bloax wrote: Needs more space.

And probably less of this.

Hm, is the version of the logo used in Space Zen too glossy and smooth?
What do you think would make it look more solid?

SyKoTiC wrote: Also, did you guys change the little thumbnail pictures or whatever they are called? This is what I mean: http://zandronum.com/forum/images/on.gif
They look more softer. I remember them being more rugged last time I seen them. It looked better that way... :<

Fixed, refresh this page in your browser (or press F5)

infurnus wrote: EDIT:

Bloax wrote: Needs more space.

And probably less of this.

Hm, is the version of the logo used in Space Zen too glossy and smooth?
What do you think would make it look more solid?

Well I did a lazy brush-job and added some lines to the result to fake an actual structure, so having a bit of 'depth' helps.

I like the result more than the somewhat blurry logo in the default theme now.

Here's a work in progress preview teaser of a revised Space Zen theme logo:


I liked your concept and decided to give it some 3D/virtual reality looking lines along the edges (I only got to finish shading the Z and A so far), as well as a glow effect.
I think I'll refine the glow effect

EDIT: vvvvv Please wait until I'm done!

I couldn't help myself. I had to.

Made some more subtle changes to Space Zen. Refresh this page in your browser (or press F5) to get the newest CSS and gradient info. I've also been working on a non-gradient sub-theme of Space Zen, stay tuned for more info.